Do not even debate moving Byram pool

Published 5:54 pm, Thursday, February 14, 2013

Some public initiatives are clear winners right off the bat. Most require much study and debate before they move forward, or don't. Yet others deserve a direct and quick route to the scrap heap.

Before town government spends any real time on it, let's place the suggestion to relocate the Byram pool atop the heap and move on.

The effort to expand and rehab the public pool in Byram Park has been inching forward for several years now, hampered by more pressing capital needs in town. But there is $200,000 in next year's capital budget proposal to cover plans for a new pool, including a new site plan in the park.

Some members of the Representative Town Meeting, however, are questioning the expenditure, at least for plans that would keep the pool where it is. RTM District 7 Chair Valerie Stauffer reported as much during a public hearing on the budget in late January.

"We're concerned that the $200,000 study seems to assume the pool will be in Byram Park," she said. "Byram Park is a gem and I have concerns that a bigger pool will be a large hole in the ground and a lot of asphalt."

Alternative suggested sites have included the Dorothy Hamill Skating Rink in Byram and the Montgomery Pinetum in Cos Cob.

We don't even want to think of the fight that would ensue over an effort to build a pool in the Pinetum, or most other places in town, for that matter.

The pool is part of Byram. The pool has been very popular where it is. We agree with Stauffer that Byram Park is a gem, but one facet bringing the luster is the public pool inside of it.

This is one debate that would lead nowhere but further delay, with plenty of anger and frustration built up along the way. Let's end it before it actually begins.